Mako Dreams
by GuardianSaiyoko
Summary: A monologue from Zack in the basement of the ShinRa Mansion. At least, that's what it started as.
1. Dream's End

They say all humans go crazy after four days of sleep deprivation. All of us, mind you, SOLDIERS and ShinRa and labrats. Most people can't even make it two days. Three days is required to get into SOLDIER.

I wonder how many days Cloud and I are up to. Heh. A lot more than four, that's for sure.

But this is different than SOLDIER training. This is worse. Training was only water carefully maintained at room temperature. Not Mako, Mako fogging my sight and plugging my ears and blocking my nose, Mako diving elatedly down my throat each time I open my mouth. It even seeps slowly into my pores, until I feel I should be glowing from the inside out.

At first I couldn't see beyond the green glow. That was when I still saw Aeris, still deluded myself that someone would come to help. But I've only ever had two friends, and one is dead in a reactor while the other is floating in the tank next to mine.

After a while, the glow crept into my eyes and wrapped its way around my sight and I could see again. I could see, but now everything has a haze of Mako green. And I can see in the dark. And you know what? I always wanted to see in the dark, but now that I can I wish I couldn't. Because I've discovered that things hidden in the shadows are hidden for a reason.

Like the man He keeps in the back room. The one with ruby red eyes and midnight hair. I can see now what He does at night for amusement.

And if in the daytime, Ruby Eyes moves stiffly when He pits us against each other, I pretend not to notice. He knows I know, our gazes have locked more than once deep at night, but I cannot hear and he does not speak.

Mako does strange things to your body. My sight pierces the night and lends everything a brilliant green haze, but all I ever hear is Mako. I didn't know it was possible to hear Mako until He stuffed me into a jarful of it. It can be, though. It can be and it sounds like that annoying high-pitched buzz your TV makes, the one some people can hear and some people can't, and that makes the ones who can't think the ones that can are crazy. At first it was just a dull buzzing in the back of my skull, but it crept slowly forward until it centered itself just between my eyes and now it's all I ever hear. I hear Mako and I see Mako and when I speak my throat is coated in it and I don't know if it's really there or just a hallucination. He even tried to feed us Mako, to stick needles in and force it into us that way. The human body can't survive on Mako alone, though, so He settles for lacing our food with it instead. And even if humans can't exist on Mako alone, I'm afraid that soon Cloud and I will be able to. I know I'm not entirely human anymore and Cloud's even further gone than I am. I'm terrified that I've become dependent on the horrible green slime, that without it I will fall apart and scatter on the wind.

But it's been too long. Years, maybe. It certainly seems that long. I need to get away. I'm starting to scratch out a message to Cloud, hoping that he isn't too far gone to read it.

A/N: This is one of the first things I ever wrote for this fandom, when I was in a really, really odd mood.


	2. Dim Fireflies

**002.Dim Fireflies Held in Glass Jars **

It took a long time. I mean _a long friggin' time._ But I did scratch out a message eventually, without Hojo noticing. Sadly, for the evil madman that he is, the man is an idiot. Which kinda worries me since he's been screwing around with mine and Cloud's heads and bodies for Odin only know how long.

Gods, I miss my summons.

I was astonished when Cloud started to scratch a message back. Really, I thought he was too far gone to accomplish that; I wasn't even certain he'd be able to read my message. But he could, and he did, and his plan wasn't half-bad. It was kind of cliché but it wasn't half-bad.

Hojo never fed us himself. He always sent some underlings in to do it. I think he never quite got over his disappointment at not being able to feed us Mako, or something. It definitely worked in our favor. As soon as the door was open, and it was always me first because Hojo had some strict schedule for everything, I fought the way I'd learned to in the sparring matches in the lab. I dug one heel in to the bottom of the tank for purchase as soon as I saw the assistant come into the basement, waited until he opened the door, and then sprang for him with a growl. I was glad I couldn't hear his scream or my growl; the former would have been too human and the latter not enough. I knocked him to the ground as I rolled into a ball to absorb the impact; Hojo's assistants weren't stupid, they wore body armor under those lab coats. I sprang to my feet quickly and punched in the panel for Cloud's tube. It slid open with a hiss and he tumbled out into my arms. He was in worse condition than I thought; Hojo had really done a number on him recently. I wasn't reacting right, or something, so he had focused on Cloud.

Hojo had left our weapons in plain sight, which was a mistake. I grabbed the Buster Sword and Yoshiyuki, found our old uniforms under them, and paused only long enough to use the Buster Sword to score the lock off the back door. The man with red eyes and black hair stepped out, bowed, and darted swiftly into the exit corridor. I followed, but by the time I was out the door he was out of sight.

"C'mon, Cloud," I muttered, hefting him. He was too weak to stand on his own. "We gotta get outta here."

There weren't any guards in the mansion. Hojo had entrusted his security to the fact that the tanks were incredibly strong; realistically, we couldn't have broken out of them. I'd tried. He had placed way too much trust in his lab assistants, though.

We were lucky; it was night. Even though I knew it would make our escape much easier, I couldn't help feeling disappointed. I missed the sun. I missed a lot of things.

The town was rebuilt. It stopped me in my tracks a moment; I had _seen_ this place go up in flames, seen it reduced to ashes, yet everything was replaced down to the truck at the entrance that Cloud had once said had always been there.

It wasn't there much longer, as I heaved Cloud into the passenger seat and gunned it for the desert.

Okay, so in retrospect, the Cosmo Desert wasn't the best place to head for. But it was that or into the mountains, and if we headed into the mountains we'd be on foot; I wasn't risking getting caught. I'd rather die in the desert than be trapped again.

It wasn't until the sun came up that I finally started feeling…everything. I was free. We were free. I could feel the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair and when the pickup ran out of gas and I started walking, carrying Cloud, I could feel the sand beneath my feet. I ditched the pickup when it would no longer go any further and we just kept heading for the distant river. We used Cosmo Canyon as a landmark, but I knew better than to go into the town. It was the nearest place to Nibelheim; the ShinRa would search it for sure. So we kept going. When we got to the water I swam to the other side, pulling Cloud along behind me, and walked along the bank with my feet in the water for as long as I dared. I didn't think anything so mundane as bloodhounds would be used but I wasn't taking any chances.

"We're going to Gongaga, Cloud. We're going home. My parents are there. They'll help us out." That's what I told him. For days. Right up until we got to the outskirts of Gongaga and I realized I couldn't go home with a severely ill Cloud and with ShinRa personnel after us. I would risk my family and my home by doing that.

It was hard, so hard, to pass by my childhood home. To keep going even though all I wanted was to rest. It had been weeks since we'd escaped and Cloud had managed maybe, maybe, one coherent sentence. It had been _weeks_ and he still couldn't stand on his own. I couldn't go back. I couldn't go home. I couldn't even go to Cloud's home, his home was gone and his family was gone. Mine could be too, I realized. I didn't know how long we'd been 'dead' for.

"Well, Cloudo, looks like we're gonna have to go deeper into the forest than I thought." And if we were lucky I'd find some place to think of a plan. If we were very, very lucky.

We weren't.

Eventually some ShinRa caught up with us. Regular troopers, not SOLDIERS, and I was thankful I didn't recognize any of them. I had to leave Cloud slumped against a tree to go and fight them; it wasn't a hard fight or a long one, but that they had been able to find us at all worried me. I dropped them all in a flurry of attacks that surprised me with their speed. I don't think I could move that fast before. Then I grabbed Cloud and slung him across my back before shimmying up a tree some distance away. I didn't want to get away from human pursuit only to be taken out by scavengers. So I shouldn't have been able to shimmy up a tree with Cloud on my back; at the moment I was just grateful that I could. There are a lot fewer things that can harm humans in the treetops than there are on the ground.

In the morning I leapt down again and continued through the forest. It was barely midmorning when we were attacked again; they were getting faster.

This time I got proof that I was a lot faster than I was supposed to be when I swung the Buster Sword up and through a bullet that was aimed at Cloud. Cloud was all I had; I was going to protect him if it killed me. Hell, maybe he wasn't as bad off as I thought he was. Maybe he spoke when I wasn't looking at him. My inability to hear would have been a major handicap in the battles if it weren't for my increased speed and strength; but this troop of soldiers was taken out as easily as the last.

A short while after noon we were attacked a third time. This time it was SOLDIERS, and a lot of them. I couldn't take them alone and I knew it; I held onto Cloud with one hand and the Buster sword with the other, Yoshiyuki strapped across my back and acting as a shield. I ran as fast as I could deeper and deeper into the woods. When my legs burned and my back ached, I slammed to an abrupt halt. I didn't know why until I found myself hoisted into a tree by a thickly knotted rope. Then I found myself staring into the mischievous gray eyes of a skinny teenage girl, who put one finger to her lips and winked. The SOLDIERS rushed past below and she silently- at least, I assume it was silently- began to nail the ones in the back in, well, their backs with throwing stars. I stared at her as she giggled, presumably just as silently. There was just something so _unnerving_ about this tiny girl gleefully taking down grown men, trained SOLDIERS who should have known better. Maybe their training had slipped while Seph and I were…away. The ones in front didn't even notice as the ones in back were hacked down. She didn't leave anyone standing; when she was done taking them out I continued to stare at her, finally finding my voice.

"You…how did you…thank you….but…"

Okay, sort of found my voice. She said something rapidly and I shook my head. "You'll have to mime that out. I'm, uh, temporarily deaf." I rubbed my forearm self-consciously and added, "At least, I hope it's temporary."

She pointed up above us. Glancing up, I saw that the knotted rope was looped tightly through interlocking branches to form a kind of winch. That explained her feat of strength, but I still didn't know why she had saved us.

She was still chattering, even though she knew I couldn't hear her.

"I don't understand." I found my voice even if I couldn't hear hers. "Why are you helping us?"

She said something rapidly, then pointed to the forest floor. I glanced down as the rest of her body quickly followed her finger. The girl could _climb_. I slid down the tree after her, mindful of Cloud's weight, and started to follow her. A short distance from the downed troopers she turned to me and said something and I could only shake my head. "I keep telling you, I can't hear you. Look, me and my friend, something- something really, really bad happened to us, and I can't hear you and I don't know _what's_ wrong with Cloudo." The nickname slipped. Great, if Cloud ever came to and found this slip of a girl calling him Cloudo, he'd kick my ass.

If he ever came to.

…Spike, you had _better_ come to.

You're the only one who was there with me. You're the only one that could possibly understand. I _need _you, Cloudo. Wake up.

Please.

The girl stopped short up ahead, forcing me to halt quickly or slam into her back. She turned swiftly and beckoned with one hand as she parted leaves with the other hand; I followed her into a cave and blinked.

It was a pretty spacious cave, as caves go. It narrowed at the far end until a point where I could have blocked the entry by standing in it and widened out where we were standing. The girl immediately headed through the narrow opening. Ducking in after her, I saw that the cave widened out again, and the back 'room' showed clear evidence of having been lived in. A pack and sleeping roll rested against one wall and the remains of a firepit cooled in the center of the cave. There was even a tiny shaft of light showing where the smoke from the fire exited. I stepped all the way in and slid Cloud down to rest on the floor. The girl immediately tugged the pack under his head for a pillow and draped the sleeping bag over him, before turning tome with a grin and holding out a token she'd evidently just swiped out of her pack. I hadn't seen her take it; the girl would make a great thief.

I glanced down at it; beaten copper on a thong. _Yuffie_ was inscribed on it. "You're Yuffie?" She nodded, grin growing. "Oh. Well, I'm Zack, and this is Cloud. Like I said, we were in some pretty bad trouble before you showed up. Uh, thanks…again."

Yuffie bit her lip briefly, seemingly toying with a decision, then darted to the edge of the cave and cam back a split second later with a broken branch. She thrust the edge in the ash and started tracing on the floor with it.

_Stay here until healed?_

I stared at the ashen message, then edged my glance up to the grinning girl. She was cleverer than I had thought. "Um, sure, I mean, if that's all right with you," I stammered. Then my relief dimmed suddenly when I caught the glow my eyes were casting in the darkened cave. I gestured half-heartedly at my eyes, faltering slightly. "You…don't mind?" Yuffie turned to shoot me a quizzical glare. She was pretty good at this silent communication thing. "I mean…"

She studied me for a second, then etched at the floor again. _SOLDIER, now?_

I studied the floor a moment, then shook my head. "No. Not now. Once, but…ShinRa did…this…to us." I waved my arm around vaguely on 'this.' I didn't really know what had been done. "The memories are…kinda hazy." She nodded slowly, then knelt and underlined _stay_. She glanced up at me through her lashes and I nodded slowly.

"If you'll have me…" I looked at Cloud's unmoving form. "…if you'll have us, we'll stay."

GuardianSaiyoko: Didn't originally intend for this to be more than a oneshot, but, well. It ran off on me.


	3. Simple Gifts

**Disclaimer: **This fic rose from the dead to haunt me in the dead of night.

* * *

**Simple Gifts**

* * *

My hearing didn't come back right away or all at once.

It did come back, though, and that was more than I'd been hoping for.

I traced designs in the ashes on the cave floor. For as busy as she kept herself, Yuffie sure seemed to hate housecleaning. Cavecleaning. Whatever; she didn't like tidying up.

Yuf had gone out hunting. She did that fairly often with varying success rates. I would have gone, but I didn't want to get too far from Cloud. Plus, no one was actively searching the area for a teenage ninja wannabe; me and Cloud, on the other hand, still had a search on.

I could hear loud sounds now. Some of Yuffie's commentary was in this 'loud sounds' range. She wasn't bad company, but it was clear she'd been roughing it alone for a long time, because she spoke to herself _constantly_. She spoke in third person, too, all about the 'Great Ninja Yuffie.'

I never heard anything from Cloud, but then, he was never entirely awake.

Looking back, I'm kinda disturbed how comfortable I was with staying in that cave indefinitely. It was somewhere safe. Even if Yuffie's hunts weren't always too successful and even if between the two of us we _still_ couldn't cook worth a damn, I wasn't locked in anywhere and I wasn't inhaling Mako and Cloud was there even if he wasn't okay. At least he had a chance.

"Honey, I'm home!"

I glanced up, startled, because I could hear Yuffie loud and clear when she _wasn't_ shouting. My hearing had come back. I doubted it'd ever quite be at the level it had been before, and I could still hear an annoying buzzing sound if I concentrated, but hey! I wasn't deaf!

"Hey, Yuffie," I said, jumping up and taking a dead rabbit out of her hands. I found I was grinning from ear to ear and couldn't stop. "Guess what! I can hear again!"

She dropped another rabbit near the firepit and tilted her head at me. "Like permanently, or temporarily?"

Shit. That hadn't occurred to me. "Uh, permanently, I hope." I followed her as she set to lighting the fire. That couldn't be proper use of a Fire materia. I wasn't inclined to complain. "Has Cloud ever said anything? Anything at all?"

"Well, he mumbles a lot," Yuffie said, crouching down to start skinning the rabbits. I'd been astonished at how efficient the girl was. I still didn't know how long she'd lived on her own. She didn't look that old.

Disappointed, I said, "And that's all?"

Yuffie grinned at me. "He's said 'Zack' twice and 'Tifa' once."

I was thrilled.

At least, for the next couple of days.

Than I started getting bored. I was living in a cave with a teenage ninja who was gone doing the-gods-know-what half the time and my semiconscious best friend; as you can imagine the living situation was severely lacking in several ways. Most pressingly, there was nothing to _do_.

And then the red-eyed man showed up at the cave entrance one day, and there was abruptly _way too much_ to do.

He was quiet, and my hearing wasn't what it used to be; I'd never have heard him. I didn't know he was there until Yuffie ran into the cave and right smack into me, shrieking about a vampire.

I poked my head out to check, which I don't advise doing when your cavemate runs in screaming about undead menaces, by the way. Knowing my cavemate I figured I was relatively safe.

I was startled to find myself face-to-face with the man from the basement. "Hiya," I said after studying him for a long moment.

He raised an eyebrow at me. His eyes did seem to glint in the moonlight. I could see why Yuffie was scared of him. "Hello again."

"You didn't tell me you knew any _vampires!_" Yuffie wailed from behind me.

"He isn't a vampire, Yuf," I said, rolling my eyes as I pulled my head back in briefly. "He was in the same situation as me an' Cloud, that's why he looks like that." I had no idea if that was true. It didn't need to be, though; it just needed to calm Yuffie down. "Actually I'd say he came out the best of the three of us." I ducked back out before Yuffie could protest any more.

Red Eyes hadn't moved, but he was gazing at the cave entrance with interest. I could immediately understand why. The cave was near impossible to spot from the outside. If he was having problems with pursuit as well, it would look awfully attractive.

"Never did get properly introduced," I said cheerfully. Being free will do that. Make you cheerful, I mean. "I'm Zack Fair."

"Vincent Valentine." Well okay, apparently it will make you cheerful provided you are not Vincent Valentine.

"My buddy is Cloud Strife, and the lovely lady you saw earlier was Yuffie," I continued.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Zack!" Yuffie shouted.

"Wanna share our cave?" I asked, partly because I'd always liked the man and partly to irritate Yuffie. It worked.

As Vincent ducked into the cave, Yuffie darted out. She came back ten minutes or so later clutching a sharpened stick and glaring at Vincent.

"Careful," I stage-whispered as I checked on Cloud. "I think she means to stake you through the heart while you sleep."

Vincent looked like he was already rethinking his living situation.


End file.
